Leaders of the G7, a finance-centric geopolitical group of international leaders, issued their joint summit statement on Saturday.  U.S. President Donald Trump refused to align the United States with the joint declaration pledging commitment to the Paris accord on climate change.

[Page 6 pdf below] …”The United States of America is in the process of reviewing its policies on climate change and on the Paris Agreement and thus is not in a position to join the consensus on these topics.  Understanding this process, the Heads of State and of Government of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom and the Presidents of the European Council and of the European Commission reaffirm their strong commitment to swiftly implement the Paris Agreement, as previously stated at the Ise-Shima Summit.”

President Trump tweeted at the conclusion of the G7 Summit:

The full summit agreement is below:

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Office of Management and Budgets (OMB) Director Mick Mulvaney outlines the structure, intents and purposes of the Trump administration Fiscal Year 2018 Budget.  “The Taxpayers Budget”.

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Much of the predictive economic analysis we present is done so for a very specific reason. If you teach yourself how to sift through the big picture rocks you can quite simply predict the granular future.  Our CTH goal has always been to help with the sifting. CTH has a remarkable track record because common sense is the compass heading, and when we see the obscure data –nobody pays attention to– we focus attention and context upon it.

NOW THIS–>:DETROIT (AP) — Ford is replacing its CEO amid questions about its current performance and future strategy. A person familiar with the situation says CEO Mark Fields is retiring at age 56 after 28 years at the company. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the official announcement hasn’t been made.

Fields will be replaced by Jim Hackett, who joined Ford’s board in 2013, this person says. Hackett has led Ford’s mobility unit since last year. He is the former CEO of office furniture maker Steelcase. Fields helped lead Ford’s turnaround a decade ago as president of its Americas division. But the company’s stock price has fallen almost 40 percent in the three years since he became CEO. (link)

Those of you who have been around a while might remember…

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The Saudi people and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are very proud of what they were able to accomplish during this historic visit by President Donald Trump to the summit of a united Arab coalition. (Summit Production Video):

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The entire region should be proud.

Despite the popular western dismissive media narrative, the summit was a resounding success. Beyond the royal pageantry, we can only imagine the internal anxiety if our beloved America was defined by the abhorrent behavior of the Westboro Baptist Church.

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President Trump is scheduled to deliver a historic speech in Saudi Arabia during the Arab Islamic American Summit.  The venue is The King Abdulaziz Conference Center and the scheduled time is approximately 9:15am EDT / 4:45pm local.

Update Video Added:

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No back-channel discussions kept hidden from allies out of a concern for their political opinion of impact.  No mysterious hidden transactions kept shrouded from the American electorate.  No nuanced details tucked away only to be discovered later.  No secret transfers of pallets of cash handled through third-parties to avoid fingerprints.  No need for the construction of plausible deniability or mysterious parseltongue terminology.

Open and frank discussion of benefits and costs.  Openly transparent details of every deal and every participant in the structure therein. Direct, plain-spoken language outlining the value and purpose of the agreement.  Every moment and consequential encounter conducted in the disinfecting sunlight of transparent publicity.  No need for phrases carefully conducted for domestic consumption.  Every member of the team tasked with explaining the purpose and intention.  While deliberate, we know what we get and we know why we are getting it.

Everything right out in the open for evaluation, praise, critique and criticism.

It’s amazing what can be achieved when there’s no political agenda.

Pretty darned refreshing.

It took a non-politician to deliver true transactional transparency.

Thank you to those who voted for President Donald Trump.

United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir hold a press briefing shortly after President Donald Trump and Saudi King Salman signed a series of agreements, including a military sales deal.

Expansive Transcript to include the media question and answer session is provided.

[United States Office of The President and U.S. Department of State]

Important Reminder – The scope of the economic impact of this ‘bilateral’ trade agreement has additional benefits when you consider within the next 12 months the U.S. Trade Team (Ross, Lighthizer, Mnuchin and T-Rex) will be renegotiating NAFTA, and bilateral trade with China, the European Union and the U.K. 

FOREIGN MINISTER AL-JUBEIR: Are we ready? Okay. Good evening, everybody. I would like to welcome all of you to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It’s a great pleasure and honor for me to welcome my colleague and friend Rex Tillerson on his first visit to Saudi Arabia as Secretary of State. Mr. Secretary, while this may be your first visit as Secretary of State, you have been here many, many, many times over many, many years. You know our country and our region extremely well. And I believe your country is fortunate to have you as Secretary of State during this period. We in the region feel very fortunate having you at the helm of the State Department.

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The primary elements of the historic arms side of the strategic agreement today is to position Saudi Arabia to enhance its own defense capability.  Over time this will lessen the concern or need of U.S. military forces or deployment.

The United States will manufacture, sell, train and support over $110 billion in U.S. hardware to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (explained below). In return, the Saudi government has committed over $350 billion in additional bilateral trade imports and investments.

[U.S. Department of State] Today, in a significant expansion of the more than seven-decade long security relationship between the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the President and Secretary Tillerson attended a signing ceremony for almost $110 billion worth of defense capabilities to be conveyed via Foreign Military Sales Letters of Offer and Acceptance and a Memorandum of Intent to support Saudi Arabia’s defense needs.

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Something appears to be happening within the administration that is currently impossible to define with regard to intent of construct. For the sake of my own internal disposition, and to ensure a geographic distance from sharp things, a modicum of levity is necessarily required.  Cue suspicious cats:

Unfortunately, it’s too early (not fully developed pixels) to see the picture, but there appears to be an intentionally constructed parallel set of administrative policies that almost gives the appearance of a paralleling administration. It should be emphasized the construct herein is not necessarily definable as good or bad; it’s just simply too early.

It begins with Vice President Mike Pence delivering a speech at the Invest in America Summit today, which is primarily a gathering of the largest lobbying group in Washington DC via The U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  No single lobbying organization has done more to advance global trade interests and diminish the U.S. manufacturing economy than the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and its president Tom Donohue.

Simultaneous to this event, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was on Capitol Hill testifying to the Senate Banking Committee, and appears to have recently accepted the premise that the U.S. banking system is institutionally too big to fail, and more alarmingly too big to reform.

First, the Summit remarks:

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U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Department of Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly hold a press conference with Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray and Mexico’s Secretary of Government Miguel Angel Osorio Chong.

President Trump has instructed the State Department and DHS to initiate a new -more aggressive- posture toward the elimination of drugs.  The United States is now developing new strategies to directly combat Mexican drug cartels, including cash flow, banks, cross-border incursions, and political corruption.

This press conference happens on the same day that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross jointly travel to the U.S. Senate to initiate starting the clock (intent notification to senate) for the 90-period prior to reopening NAFTA.

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Combating violent drug cartels, securing the southern U.S. border and the new NAFTA trade agreement are all extremely important undertakings. That said, look at the poor media attendance.  Update: Transcript Added

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